How Can This Be?
This week's lead-off MGCSS comes from this morning's Boston Herald. And once again, I must ask that you not let this story, and others like it, cripple your faith in our Commonwealth's "common-sense" gun control laws.
Traffic stop menace: Nothing's routine as gun seizures on rise
Wait a minute. I thought our tough gun laws were supposed to take care of this problem and create a gun-free land of milk and honey. Have these people no respect for the law? [/rhetorical question]
"Bad drivers"? Shouldn't that read "violent drug-dealers, junkies, rapists, and muggers who also happen to suck at driving"? But why single out that particular demographic when you can go after "bad drivers" and demonize 50% of the state's adult population?
What? You mean they weren't purchased legally in neighboring states, such as New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont with less restrictive gun laws. How can that be? That's the line Mayor Menino and the rest of the Bay State GFW politicians have been force-feeding us for years. They wouldn't intentionally lie to us to promote their anti-gun rights agenda now, would they?[/rhetorical question]
OK, let me see if I follow the logic here. Arrests for illegal firearm possession by criminals are on the rise, despite the never-ending legislative efforts to further restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding, licensed gun owners.
Welcome to Massachusetts - please check the portion of your brain responsible for processing logic and reason at the door.
Traffic stop menace: Nothing's routine as gun seizures on rise
In little more than a year, Boston cops hit upon 108 pistols, assault weapons and shotguns inside motor vehicles they pulled over for reasons as seemingly mundane as running stop signs and busted brake lights, the Herald has learned.
Wait a minute. I thought our tough gun laws were supposed to take care of this problem and create a gun-free land of milk and honey. Have these people no respect for the law? [/rhetorical question]
Almost without exception, stack upon stack of reports police filed between Jan. 1, 2004, and Jan. 31, 2005, repeated one word to describe the heat bad drivers are packing in traffic: "loaded."
"Bad drivers"? Shouldn't that read "violent drug-dealers, junkies, rapists, and muggers who also happen to suck at driving"? But why single out that particular demographic when you can go after "bad drivers" and demonize 50% of the state's adult population?
"It's amazing that there's such a high number of guns being taken off the streets this way," said Sgt. Thomas Sexton, spokesman for the Boston Police Department.
[snip]
Seizures included a submachine gun, a .38-caliber revolver stolen in Oregon in 1973, a .357 Magnum stolen in Los Angeles in 1987, a .22-caliber semiautomatic stolen in a 1997 housebreak in Revere and five shotguns.
What? You mean they weren't purchased legally in neighboring states, such as New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont with less restrictive gun laws. How can that be? That's the line Mayor Menino and the rest of the Bay State GFW politicians have been force-feeding us for years. They wouldn't intentionally lie to us to promote their anti-gun rights agenda now, would they?[/rhetorical question]
Though just a blip on the screen when one considers police pulled over some 118,494 vehicles in 2004, the 93 guns they confiscated from those stops accounted for 12 percent of the total firearms (745) police took in all year. And so far this year, those numbers aren't shifting into reverse. Fifteen guns were grabbed in traffic stops in January - triple what cops encountered in the same month last year.
OK, let me see if I follow the logic here. Arrests for illegal firearm possession by criminals are on the rise, despite the never-ending legislative efforts to further restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding, licensed gun owners.
Welcome to Massachusetts - please check the portion of your brain responsible for processing logic and reason at the door.
